Planting wildflowers can make a wonderful, and completely natural looking garden. Wildflowers often attract birds, bees and butterflies too, plus they're excellent to use for areas of your yard which always seem to be a bit too bare and unfinished.

Creating a wildflower garden can be as simple as scattering some wildflower seeds into a specific area of your yard, or you can create an actual garden bed or plot specifically designed for growing your wild flowers, then carefully place starter plants or seeds into a pre-arranged garden layout. Since wild flowers are supposed to look like they're growing there naturally though, you'll usually get the best results by simply scattering the seeds around.

Wildflower gardens are excellent to plant into open fields and empty lots, as well as specific areas of your yard too. They work wonderfully around a mailbox post for instance, because they grow in a variety of different colors and heights. Having wildflowers grow around your mailbox post can give your home a country design type of look which is quite popular and attractive.

Planting wild flowers usually gives you a low maitenance, natural looking garden that nature takes care of on its own. Since most wildflowers are native to the area you're planting them in, you don't usually have to worry about watering them much. Wildflowers also propogate on their own - which means they'll drop seeds to the ground so new flowers will grow in the same area the following year.

Some wildflowers are annuals and some are perennials. The perennials will continue to grow and bloom for several years or more without you having to take cuttings, collect seeds, or anything else to help them. Annuals will only live for one growing season, but many wildflower annuals develop their own seeds too. You can collect these seeds and plant them in new locations next year, or you can simply let nature take its course. When nature does the job, the seeds will drop to the ground and hibernate over the winter, then many of those seeds will sprout again on their own the following year.

Most people choose to plant wildflowers in a random way. They don't plan where exactly each flowering plant will grow, and they don't select plants based on color, height or texture either. Wildflower gardens can be created in almost any way you'd like though. If you'd like to have a field full of peach or red colored wildflowers for instance, all you'd need to do is select wildflower varieties which produce the appropriate flower color for your needs.

The most difficult aspect of wildflower gardening though, is thinning out the plants once they start growing. When you scatter the seeds randomly, you can't usually tell just how crowded the flowers will be in your garden when they start to grow. It's not uncommon to end up with too many flowers in one area though, so you have to pull some of them out to give the others room to grow. The flowers are usually so pretty in bloom though, that making yourself pull some can be difficult. You will be rewarded however, by the beautiful blooms you'll start seeing on those wildflowers you left in place once they have more room to thrive.

Tags: Annuals, Perennials, Wildflower gardening

Annuals are flowers and plants which only grow for one season, then they die off and must be replanted again by seed or starter plants the next year. Some annuals create seeds though, which will drop to the ground and naturally start sprouting on their own the following year, but many must be purchased again if you want to have those flowers blooming in your yard and garden again each year.

Annuals are a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to create beautiful color in your yard and garden in the springtime. Many annuals can be purchased in small four or six inch starter pots, and they'll often already have flowers blooming when you buy them. Buying them this way allows you to take them home, put them into the ground or into pots and containers, and have an instant blooming garden right from the start.

By planting blooming annual flowers along your walkway for instance, or into a new garden bed or container, you'll have instant color and beauty in your yard as early in the season as you'd like.

Most annuals are fairly easy to plant, take care of, and grow. Most of them also come in a wide variety of flower color selections too. Some annuals are particularly hardy through drought and strong sunlight, and some actually continuously bloom from spring through summer and into late fall too. These types of annuals tend to be the most pleasing to gardeners, because there is little work needed to keep their garden look fresh and colorful almost all year round.

Vinca flowers for instance, look a little like Pansies and they come in a huge variety of flower colors. You can buy vincas which have solid colored flower petals and blooms, or ones which have variagated colors on the flowers instead. The leaves of this plant are green and glossy, but it does extremely well in high heat and direct, strong sunlight areas.

Vinca's often grow to about ten or twelve inches high, and when you pluck the expended buds off of them regularly, they bloom in some areas for months on end. In Zone 7B for instance, it's not uncommon to see Vinca's in bloom from March through September or October.

Another easy growing annual that's a favorite of most gardeners is the Pansy. This plant also has glossy green leaves and many different flower colors to choose from. The flowers themselves almost look like little faces with the way they're colored too.

Morning Glories are another annual plant in most areas, and these also produce profusive flower blooms for months on end. As long as the roots of the Morning Glory vines are kept moist and out of direct, hot sunlight, these plants will climb all over a trellis, fence, and even bushes too.

Morning Glory vines create a tight spiral pattern when they're climbing, so you need to give them small things to grab onto. A trellis with wide wooden slats is too large for the tight spirals to get around easily, but a chainlink fence is ideal. You can even use string or thin twine for the vines to wrap around and climb.

Tags: Blue Picotee, Annuals, Morning Glory

Shade gardening is a type of gardening many new gardeners don't think of, because most seem to think that in order to have a beautiful blooming garden, you need to put plants in areas that get some sunlight. In fact though, there are some shade loving plants that are quite beautiful, and most of them create blooms of some kind or other as well. Many shade loving plants also tend to have beautiful colors and textures on their leaves and stalks as well, which helps bring beauty and interest to a previously drab, dark or boring area of your yard.

Shade gardening is not difficult at all, but it can seem a little tricky at first. And this is because there are varying levels of shade at any given time of the day. Some areas of your yard for instance, may have filtered sunlight throughout most of the day instead of full shade. Other areas may seem to never see sun at all, and still others may have deep shade for most of the day, with bright direct sunlight for a small part of the day too. And these variations in the amount of sun or shade a given part of your yard has will determine the success or failure of your shade garden.

There are some shade loving plants which cannot tolerate any direct sun for instance, but they'll do just fine with a bit of filtered sunlight each day. Other shade loving plants though, prefer to grow in full, deep, dark shade all the time.

The best plants to put into a shady area of your yard and garden though, are called Hostas. These plants come in a wide variety of textures, colors, and sizes. Most of them create beautiful blooms too, but possibly one of the most interesting things about them is how they create such a wonderful display of color even when they don't have any flowers in bloom.

Hostas are perennial plants, which means they live for many years. In fact, these plants actually get more beautiful as they age too, because they tend to create gorgeous clumps of color that keep expanding and growing each year. Many types of hostas also show even more color as they get older too.

Hosta plants range from very small to very large, and though most will do just fine in full, deep, dark shade, they tend to thrive best when they have at least a little morning sun, or some filtered sunlight throughout the day. Hostas will also grow quite well in containers too, so feel free to plant some for sprucing up the inside of your home, or the patio and porch areas too.

Tags: Shade Gardening